USA

SANTA ROSA, Calif. (AP) — Nikki and Kevin Conant returned to their home in Northern California wine country Wednesday to find only the charred remains of their home and burned pieces of the wine barrels they used to repurpose into custom-made art and furniture.

“It was like a part of me is gone, burned up in the fire. Everything we built here, everything we made here is gone,” Nikki Conant said.

(AP) --- American Airlines will begin furloughing 19,000 employees on Thursday after lawmakers and the White House failed to agree on a broad pandemic-relief package that includes more federal aid for airlines.

CEO Doug Parker said Wednesday night that if Washington comes up with a deal for $25 billion in airline aid “over the next few days,” American will reverse the furloughs and recall the employees.

MILWAUKEE (AP) — The coronavirus tightened its grip on the American heartland, with infections surging in the Midwest, some hospitals in Wisconsin and North Dakota running low on space and the NFL postponing a game over an outbreak that’s hit the Tennessee Titans football team.

Midwestern states are seeing some of the nation’s highest per capita rates of infection, and while federal health officials again urged some governors in the region to require masks statewide, many Republicans have resisted.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Wednesday tried to walk back his refusal to outright condemn a far right fascist group during his debate with Democrat Joe Biden, but the inflammatory moment was far from the first time the president has failed to denounce white supremacists or has advanced racist ideas.

Trump’s initial refusal to criticize the Proud Boys — instead saying the group should “stand back and stand by” — drew fierce blowback before he altered his message in a day-later effort to quell the firestorm.

PITTSBURGH (AP) — President Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden kept up their debate-stage sniping from the road and the rails on Wednesday, fighting for working-class voters in the Midwest while both parties — and the debate commission, too — sought to deal with the most chaotic presidential faceoff in memory.

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 30 (APP): Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi Tuesday commended the work of the U.N. Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) in advancing mutual respect for diverse cultures, traditions and religious beliefs at a virtual high-level event marking the alliance’s 15th anniversary.

In remarks to the meeting of the Group of Friends of the Alliance, which was set up in 2005 by Spain and Turkey under UN auspices, he said Pakistan, as its founding member, remained committed to promotion of these noble ideals at home and abroad.

UNITED NATIONS, Sept 30 (NNN-AGENCIES) – UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, called for further debt relief, for poor and middle-income countries for them to respond to COVID-19.

“I hope the Debt Service Suspension Initiative (of the Group of 20) will be extended and its scope expanded to all developing and middle-income countries in need. The private sector, including the credit rating agencies, must be engaged in relief efforts,” he told a joint press conference with Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau and Jamaican Prime Minister, Andrew Holness.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Facebook Inc said on Wednesday it would start replacing the direct messaging service within Instagram with a version of its Messenger app, the first major step in its plan to tie together messaging across its suite of apps.

The move enables users of each service to find, message and hold video calls with contacts on the other without needing to download both apps.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- While the U.S. economy has rebounded faster than originally anticipated following a large contraction in the second quarter, U.S. employment probably won't recover to pre-pandemic levels until 2023, a senior Federal Reserve official said Tuesday.

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations and the European Union on Tuesday signed an agreement on the sidelines of the 75th session of the UN General Assembly to enhance cooperation and strengthen collective response in peace operations and crisis management.